Daryl Copeland

Former diplomat Daryl Copeland is an educator, analyst and consultant; the author of Guerrilla Diplomacy; a research fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, a policy fellow at the University of Montreal’s Centre for International Studies (CERIUM), and visiting professor at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna. See www.guerrilladiplomacy.com and follow him on Twitter @GuerrillaDiplo.

It’s news to no one that the world is beset by a bewildering array of complex and difficult challenges, ranging from how best to manage the global commons, to diminishing biodiversity, to resource scarcity.

Canada has been intensely engaged in Afghanistan for more than a decade. Something approaching $30 billion has been expended, some 160 lives have been lost, and perhaps ten times that have been seriously injured or wounded.

When it comes to many of the world’s problems – and their solutions – the prospects for security and development are intimately linked to science. Yet there exists a yawning disconnect between science and technology, on one hand, and diplomacy and international policy on the other.

Mr. Assange and the WikiLeaks revelations have produced something akin to a “Napster moment” for governments. The emergence of WikiLeaks, and the similar sites that are popping up all over cyberspace, looks very much like a game changer.

Could a Department of International Affairs and Global Issues be smaller and more beautiful than DFAIT? By my reckoning, DFAIT now has fewer friends, less influence, and more diminished discretionary resources than… probably ever.

Since the end of the Cold War, in seeking to advance their interests or when significant differences arise, most governments have opted to reach for the gun. The consequences have been calamitous, not only in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, but also on the home front, where society is becoming increasingly militarized and the armed forces are adulated.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade will lose about $170 million from its budget over the next three years. The reductions in various areas represent mainly false economies, and are only going to make a desperate situation even worse. This is bad news for prospective Canadian security and prosperity.

After a flurry of activity in the 1990s – the land mine ban, International Criminal Court, children in conflict, blood diamonds, the Responsibility to Protect – it has been over a decade since Canada attempted any significant diplomatic initiative.